SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

Ac­tor, mod­el, Mr Grand Trinidad and To­ba­go 2021, and Tik­Tok, Threads and Face­book con­tent cre­ator, Su­veer Ram­sook, has de­scribed his re­cent vis­it to this coun­try’s her­itage site, Nel­son Is­land, as a deeply per­son­al, full-cir­cle ex­pe­ri­ence that strength­ened his con­nec­tion to his an­ces­try.

To gain a deep­er un­der­stand­ing of his roots, Ram­sook trav­elled to In­dia in Jan­u­ary last year to ex­pe­ri­ence the home­land of his an­ces­tors. Af­ter re­turn­ing, he be­came de­ter­mined to vis­it the place where many In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers, in­clud­ing his fore­bears, first ar­rived in Trinidad.

His vis­it to Nel­son Is­land on May 7, 2026, be­came the emo­tion­al con­tin­u­a­tion of that jour­ney.

Ram­sook vis­it­ed the is­land in the com­pa­ny of the In­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er to Trinidad, Pradeep Singh Ra­jpuro­hit, and oth­er in­di­vid­u­als, trans­port­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard.

“My vis­it to Nel­son Is­land was a full-cir­cle mo­ment,” he stat­ed.

“I vis­it­ed where my an­ces­tors were from, and now I vis­it­ed where they were ini­tial­ly brought to in Trinidad. My key pur­pose was to ex­plore the is­land’s his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance re­gard­ing in­den­tured labour­ers, and con­nect­ing my an­ces­try to the site.”

Jour­ney­ing to Nel­son Is­land, Ram­sook iden­ti­fied it while pass­ing by and lat­er climbed its steps on­to the com­mon grounds, where emo­tion quick­ly over­took cu­rios­i­ty. See­ing the ti­tle of the first sign, As­sem­bly Area, trig­gered re­flec­tion.

In an in­ti­mate ex­pe­ri­ence with the sign­board, a cheer­ful Ram­sook re­alised, “I may be stand­ing on the very same spot where my an­ces­tors stood.” The board re­vealed that this was the area where the Pro­tec­tor of Im­mi­grants read the Im­mi­gra­tion Or­di­nance to im­mi­grants/an­ces­tors. At the Reg­is­tra­tion Area, he fa­mil­iarised him­self with the ad­min­is­tra­tive pro­to­cols ap­plied to his an­ces­tors, which in­clud­ed “sev­er­al pa­pers re­quir­ing check­ing to en­sure all ar­riv­ing In­den­tured labour­ers were well doc­u­ment­ed be­fore they were trans­ferred to es­tates.”

For Ram­sook, the vis­it al­so be­came an ed­u­ca­tion in­to one of Trinidad’s most his­tor­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant lo­ca­tions.

Nel­son Is­land is the sec­ond largest is­land with­in the six-islet arch­i­pel­ago just off Trinidad’s north-west penin­su­la in the Gulf of Paria known as Five Is­lands (Las Co­tor­ras/the para­keets). De­spite be­ing in­di­vid­u­al­ly named, the is­lands are ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly at­tached to Trinidad.

The is­land served as the lo­ca­tion at which more than 114,000 In­di­an im­mi­grants/in­den­tured labour­ers/an­ces­tors were de­posit­ed from In­dia be­tween 1866 and 1917.

Ow­ing to that his­to­ry and the is­land’s mul­ti­ple func­tions over time, it of­fers a broad range of au­then­tic his­tor­i­cal-tourism ed­u­ca­tion through phys­i­cal struc­tures and writ­ten ac­counts.

The im­mi­grants ar­rived car­ry­ing “ja­ha­ji bun­dles”, lan­guages in­clud­ing Bho­jpuri, Hin­di and Ben­gali, and scrip­tures such as the Gi­ta, Ko­ran and Ra­mayana.

Nel­son Is­land func­tioned as a manda­to­ry quar­an­tine sta­tion where im­mi­grants were screened for dis­ease and giv­en time to re­cov­er be­fore be­ing trans­ferred to es­tates. It al­so served as an as­sem­bly fa­cil­i­ty and repa­tri­a­tion point for ex-in­den­tured labour­ers re­turn­ing to In­dia.

Ram­sook’s ex­pe­ri­ence and knowl­edge broad­ened as he toured the Reg­is­tra­tion Build­ing, marked AD 1802, the old­est stand­ing roofed build­ing in Trinidad.

It hous­es the Ex­hi­bi­tion Area on the top floor, for­mer­ly the dor­mi­to­ry for in­den­tured women and chil­dren; served as a quar­an­tine sta­tion; and stood near the Mar­i­on Hos­pi­tal, which treat­ed ill an­ces­tors.

The sur­viv­ing struc­tures on the is­land were built by the Eng­lish ad­min­is­tra­tion short­ly af­ter the cap­ture of Trinidad in 1797 by en­slaved Africans from near­by es­tates.

Ram­sook al­so re­flect­ed on the is­land’s wider his­tor­i­cal rel­e­vance: “It’s a glob­al sto­ry.”

In the 1930s, Nel­son Is­land be­came a refuge for Jew­ish fam­i­lies. Dur­ing the Sec­ond World War, refugee Jews flee­ing per­se­cu­tion in Eu­rope were ar­rest­ed and sent there for three months. With­in that same pe­ri­od and lo­ca­tion, Trinida­di­an labour hero, Tubal Uri­ah But­ler (1897–1977), was con­fined to si­lence his rev­o­lu­tion­ary voice.

Ram­sook al­so point­ed to 1970, when the same reg­is­tra­tion build­ing be­came a high-se­cu­ri­ty hold­ing area for 50 lead­ers of the Black Pow­er Move­ment who were iso­lat­ed for de­mand­ing equal­i­ty and jus­tice.

Nel­son Is­land was al­so used by Amerindi­ans, the French, Span­ish, Amer­i­cans and British for fish­ing, bar­ter­ing, as a de­fence base, sea­plane base and prison, re­spec­tive­ly.

Jail cells, gun em­place­ments, arte­facts and scenic coastal sites all formed part of Ram­sook’s ex­pe­ri­ence.

“For this unique trea­sure is­land and abun­dance and wealth of his­to­ry, I would like to see its in­fra­struc­ture and sur­round­ings be ren­o­vat­ed with her­itage preser­va­tion,” as­sert­ed Ram­sook.

“This will in­spire more peo­ple to vis­it as it now serves as a mu­se­um for tourists and an area for ge­neal­o­gy re­search.”

That hope may soon be­come re­al­i­ty.

An elat­ed Ram­sook re­vis­it­ed the is­land on May 9 and wit­nessed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and In­dia’s Min­is­ter of Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs, Sub­rah­manyam Jais­hankar, un­veil a com­mem­o­ra­tive plaque sig­nalling the restora­tion and up­grade of Nel­son Is­land in com­mem­o­ra­tion of the 181st an­niver­sary of In­di­an Ar­rival Day in Trinidad on May 30.